You’re going to hear this same argument endlessly regurgitated between now and the end of primary season: You need to go with a centrist (read corporate Democrat) to beat Donald Trump. Don’t you believe it!
That message is the heart of the campaigns of Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and, of course, old Joe Biden. But the corporate media loves to trumpet that same tired trope, be it The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, and, of course, The New York Times. In fact, the Times fears Elizabeth Warren so much that several of its star columnists have ganged up on her: David Brooks and more David Brooks, Bret Stephens, Roger Cohen, Frank Bruni, and, of course, Maureen Dowd, who got an early start trashing Elizabeth Warren in 2016. (No hatchet job is complete without Maureen Dowd weighing in. Just ask Hillary Clinton.)
These pundits and outlets think that the 2020 Democratic nominee should hew to the middle, reject the progressive streak that Bernie Sanders pioneered, reject universal health care, tuition-free college, greater environmental protections, universal gun background checks, or impeachment. Why are they wrong? Please let me count the ways.
First of all, all of those issues are supported by a majority of Americans. So the argument that you’re going to lose “real Americans” — read rural white men — is ridiculous.
Secondly, the type of campaign the pundits and corporate media seek is the one the Democrats ran in 2016. And 2004. And 2000. How did that work out? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result may be the definition of something, but it’s not the definition of good political strategy.
But the champions of centrist chumps exclaim, “If we don’t run a mushy moderate, they’ll call us socialists!” Guess what? They’re going to call you socialists no matter what.
I voted for Andy Beshear, but he’s hardly the poster child for progressive politics. To the best of my knowledge, Beshear has never come out for looser immigration policies, Medicare for All, or socialism. But that didn’t stop the Republicans from claiming that Beshear was a “liberal radical” twin of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, separated at birth. If you’re going to get the blame anyway, you may as well support the progressive policies that poll at 60, 70, and 80 percent!
Lastly, as you’ll notice, the folks who like the mushy moderates the best are Republicans who — surprise! surprise! — will be voting for the Republican candidate in November 2020. Voters who switched from Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016 say they’re likely to stick with Trump over Biden.
But you know what? That doesn’t matter. Because the number of Democrats who stayed home in 2016 outnumbers the number of voters who switched to Trump.
So what the Democrats need is someone who will energize those voters enough to get them to the polls. That’s much more likely to be someone who is extremely popular with young people and LGBTQ voters and who outraised Biden, Buttagieg and Kamala Harris in the third quarter of 2019 — even though the corporate media has virtually instated a media blackout of his campaign. Or how about someone who needed four hours to satisfy every fan who wanted a selfie with her. That was just one rally!
The corporate Democrats and their media handmaidens may be singing the siren song of the sensible centrist, but you don’t have to listen. Remember what Jim Hightower famously said:
There’s nothing in the middle of the road but
yellow stripes and dead armadillos.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”The corporate Dems and their media handmaidens may be singing the siren song of the sensible centrist, but you don’t have to listen. Remember that Jim Hightower quote: There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” quote=”The corporate Dems and their media handmaidens may be singing the siren song of the sensible centrist, but you don’t have to listen. Remember that Jim Hightower quote: There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”]
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